“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar

“The most effective way to do it is to do it.” — Amelia Earhart

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” — Jordan Belfort

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” — Napoleon Hill

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” — Benjamin Disraeli

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” — Tony Robbins

Some other favorites of mine for which I’m not sure where to give credit…

“Action creates clarity.”

“Every journey starts with the first step.”

You’ve heard these adages, yes?

Kinda feels like if enough people are saying the same thing in different ways, there must be something to it.

So what is it about doing, taking action, taking that first step — however messy or small — that is so powerful?

It reminds me of something I was telling my son the other day. He was doing schoolwork and got stuck, ultimately getting some answers wrong. The natural response is to feel disappointed or frustrated in these failures. But as I explained to him, if you’re going to learn to spell words, you have to risk getting some wrong. If you’re going to learn to solve math problems, you have to be willing to miss some.

Practice begets failures… and that’s a good thing.

But why?

Learning something assumes you don’t already have it perfected. And if you’re going to practice something not yet mastered, it’s inevitable to mess up. Therefore, failure is part of the journey of improvement, development, mastery. The professional juggler has dropped the ball way more often than I ever have. Is that because he’s no good? Quite the opposite. He’s amazing. It simply means I never tried in the first place.

So doing is so powerful because action is motion, and motion generates momentum. Being in motion, trying, practicing… all creates the conditions to learn, grow, change, and, eventually, master something.

In my realm of personal finance, I can plan all kinds of beautiful budgets, but they’re absolutely meaningless unless they’re executed in real life. And that is a whole different ball of wax than putting a plan on paper.

The doing is so much more powerful. It highlights the gaps, magnifies the weaknesses in every plan. But the weaknesses and gaps are where the magic starts.

When you know the weakest link, your greatest weakness, your largest gap, you know exactly where to focus to bring about the change you crave.

the family money mentor

Whether learning to hit a baseball or sticking to a spending limit, highlighting the weak points directs your attention to finding a solution. When my son misses spelling words, we know exactly what to practice next week. When he misses problems on a math test, we know exactly what skills to spend more time on. If we just keep waiting for him to be good enough to take a spelling test, progress would slow dramatically.

By this perspective, failure is a really good thing. It means you’re trying, you’re evolving. You’re on the path and in the game.

Because, ultimately, the only way to avoid further failure is to quit.

So why do we shrink at the idea of failure?

Primarily, I think we’re overly sensitive to judgement of others and taking risk simply because we’re wired to fear the negative more so than take risks. You’ve got to live to see another day, first and foremost. But failing at spelling words or credit card spending are not life or death scenarios. It’s important to acknowledge that we’re safe in taking most modern day risks — starting a business, learning to invest in the stock market, buying our first house, etc.

But if you wait, avoid, or procrastinate getting in the game, you simply delay the essential “failures” that act as your guideposts for your next steps.

So, go… get started falling on your face.

(Just like babies literally do when learning to walk.)

Because passing through the face plants is the only way to practice getting back up and reach eventual success.